Re: Australian and NZ imperialism

[Philip L Ferguson <PLF13@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jose writes:
>I think that before people start investing with tremendous significance the
>actions of one or another imperialist power, they should do a fairly sober
>assessment of its potential and limitations, which might help reveal the
>true significance of the actions.

The point, Jose, is that we are not talking about Australia and NZ
challenging the US for global hegemon; we are talking about these two
countries as imperialist powers in the Asia-Pacific region, an area in
which they have a substantial capacity to play an important role.

Your strange idea that imperialism is a unified whole just doesn't hold up.
'Capital in general', as Marx noted, comprises a mass of individual
capitals which, of necessity, compete.  Indeed, it is in/through
competition that the mass of individual capitals come to constitute a
'capital in general'.

Imeprialism in general consists of a number of competing imperialists.
After WW2 the USA emerged as global hegemon, but the conditions that
pertained at that time have changed.  We are now seeing indiviudal advanced
capitlaist countries asserting their own interests in a way that was not
possible before.

I have given a number of examples of this - such as germany and Japan doing
things that were unthinkable before the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

Australia and NZ are also doing things which they never did before.
Australia never led a major imperialist initiative before and it isn't
becasue there were never opportunities.  When the stooge government in
Malaya was confronted with a 'communist insurgency' in the 1950s and early
1960s, it wasn't Australia, but Britain, which organised the intervention,
for instance.

Today, NZ and Australia pursue policies which are increasingly their own.
How you can be blind to this seems quite bizarre to me, especially when the
NZ government told the US to fuck off over nuclear warships.  That was
absolutely unimaginable 20 years ago.  It indicates that the NZ ruling
class very definitely has its own specific agenda in the region.  The whole
NZ ruling class also opposed French testing in Muroroa in 1994-5, in fact a
chunk of them even got on their yachts and sailed off to the testing zone,
while Tory prime minister Bolger strutted the world stage challenging the
French leader to debate the issue.  The NZ ruling class now favours
independence for French Polynesia and New Caledonia/Kanaky.  All of these
are major policy changes which are in line with the independent interests
of the NZ ruling class.

Before the end of the Cold War, as I noted before, NZ *opposed*
independence in the French Pacific colonies.

Interestingly, we had one of the top NZ diplomats speaking here at
Canterbury yesterday - he was a former NZ ambassador to the UN then
ambassador to China.  And, surprise, surprise, he was also talking about NZ
initiatives - indeed he even referred to the NZ-Austrlaian intervention in
Timor as 'imperialist'.  He also suggested NZ got into Bougainville to get
one up on the Australians.

Once again, the sophisticated elements of the bourgeoisie have a much
better grasp of events than those leftists like Jose who appear to have
never left the 1970s.  Jose, buddy, you need to get out more.

Cheers,
Phil